With a focus on deep technical training, TD SYNNEX’s Academy team offers courses that prepare participants to gain or renew certifications in some of Microsoft’s best-known and in-demand technologies, including Azure, Dynamics, Microsoft 365, Power Platform, SQL Server and Windows. TD SYNNEX’s Academy, the learning arm of TD SYNNEX, serves end users who manage IT environments for their employers as well as resellers who either resell the solution or are contracted to provide skilled IT management services to smaller end users that do not employ in-house IT teams.
To bolster its courses, TD SYNNEX’s Academy uses Skillable Challenges, offered by Skillable, which are short, scenario-based, hands-on scored labs that are ideal for cloud technologies. While the labs are used most heavily for Microsoft trainings, TD SYNNEX’s Academy does use them to a lesser extent to supplement trainings focused on other technologies, such as AWS and VMware.
Providing more valuable training
TD SYNNEX’s Academy is a Microsoft Learning Partner globally and provides official authorized courses to students built on Microsoft Official Courseware and delivered by a Microsoft Certified Trainer. For the many courses that require lab environments, TD SYNNEX’s Academy partners with Skillable for those that enhance and supplement the training content. In addition to taking the classes online or in the classroom (post-COVID), a self-paced option is also available.
TD SYNNEX’s Academy began offering trainings for Microsoft technologies in 2017. Two years later, in 2019, Nicola Keskin joined as business development manager, tasked with driving growth across TD SYNNEX’s Academy’s full Microsoft certification portfolio. Keskin is based in Europe, works with teams in approximately 13 countries and believes that the ability to offer labs that include hands-on exercises is a definite competitive advantage in a crowded field.
Simply put, the exercises within each Skillable Challenge enable TD SYNNEX’s Academy to offer training that is more valuable. “It’s not very helpful for attendees to passively view a PowerPoint presentation that tells them how Azure works,” she says.
Skillable Challenges, provided by Skillable, offer a compelling alternative: High-level guidance and requirements rather than instructions. Each challenge presents a practical scenario to the learner, who is then asked to solve or perform set requirements. “With Skillable Challenges, students learn by doing hands-on exercises,” Keskin says. “Instead of looking at a file with instructions, they work in a test environment and set up something real. Being able to offer a Skillable Challenge in addition to the standard lab is a great training option that helps our students develop an even better understanding of the technology.”
Website
Mission
TD SYNNEX’s Academy, the IT training division for TD SYNNEX, provides official IT certification courses to students around the globe. TD SYNNEX’s Academy offers IT certifications online, in classrooms or via self-paced courses from the IT vendors that are leading the way in next-generation and data center technologies, including Checkpoint, IBM, Juniper, Microsoft, VMware and many more.
Year established
2020
Headquarters
Clearwater, Florida USA
Number of students
More than 6,000 students per year
Number of courses
More than 3,000 courses delivered in 22 countries and a training provider to more than 20 vendors
Use Case
Official lab provider for Microsoft certification classes, “Labs & Learn” – a dedicated and stand-alone product together with TD SYNNEX’s Academy and Skillable Challenges
The case for Skillable Challenges
Excellent exam preparation
For those with a certification or re-certification exam on the horizon, Skillable Challenges have proven themselves an excellent way to prepare. “If someone attends an Azure training with us, their goal is usually to gain a certification,” Keskin says. “And it’s usually not enough to attend a four-day training. That’s where Skillable Challenges come in handy—you can keep working and use it to prepare for the exam to reach this certification.”
Keskin reports that Skillable Challenges are particularly valuable for students who prefer self-paced learning as well as those who prefer courses that are led by instructors. “We realize that a lot of people prefer to train themselves rather than attend a four-day training,” she says. “Skillable Challenges work well for both.”
Regardless of the instructional model, Keskin says the labs are a critical part of preparing for an exam to gain or renew a certification. “Skillable Challenges provide access to exercises that will show you if you understand what you were taught,” she says. “The labs use live exercises to prepare participants for exams, and can be done at levels suited to where the learner is—beginning or deep dive.”
Adding value with Skillable Challenges
The relationship with Skillable, a Microsoft Authorized Lab Hoster, began prior to Keskin’s arrival. “Skillable was recommended by Microsoft and was the lab provider for our very first classes,” she says. Currently, TD SYNNEX’s Academy leverages Skillable Challenges predominantly for its Microsoft trainings, but Keskin says she plans to begin more actively positioning the labs to supplement trainings offered by other vendors, such as AWS and VMware.
For now, she’s taking advantage of the flexibility of Skillable Challenges, which can function as a stand-alone subscription or supplement existing content in support of the users’ learning experience, and experimenting with ways to leverage the labs to provide additional value to learners. For example, TD SYNNEX is offering a “take a class, get a free challenge” promotion, selling annual passes, which make taking a Skillable Challenge as simple as going to TD SYNNEX’s Academy website and adding the lab to a shopping cart. “We just started reselling,” she says. “We’re still in the pilot phase with these offerings, but they’re off to a great start.”
In the near future, Keskin plans to leverage the value of Skillable Challenges as a means of building and maintaining customer relationships. “I plan to combine Skillable Challenges with our standard offering, adding Skillable Challenges access for one full year after attending a TD SYNNEX Academy training, as a way of keeping in touch, as a way of adding value to our standard offering,” she says.
